La Tortura

TORTURE AND ILL TREATMENT

At the time of Louis XVI, social injustice invaded the streets of France, was the time when people were starving while the nobles were sitting in luxurious halls, eat the food of the people. Tired of so much inequality, oppression and the lack of possibility to participate in their government´s decisions, the people revolted against this because they thought they could reached the conditions they deserved: The right to an education, the right to protest, the right to life, the right to privacy, freedom of speech, freedom of religion. This was the precursor of the actual human rights declaration; however, we would have to wait until the horrors lived during the two world wars, for people to understand the importance of having a universal rule in which we could all rely.

One of the most important issues which punish the human rights declaration, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948 at Paris, is torture. This crime is defined as the infliction of physical or psychological pain, for a purpose that can be personal or political. Some of the causes for this inhuman act can be the acquisition of information, the punishment for an action committed, or to intimidate someone. Torture can happen anywhere, but is usually done during the initial phase of prisoner detention or imprisonment, and is caused by the military police or opposition forces. Often, only under the conditions of the place, especially in the absence of feeding victims, poor hygiene of the room or even lacking in medical care towards these, caused greater pressure on the victims, which makes the suffering even greater, and torture, even worse. This act is also considered to be a crime against humanity when the acts are committed as part of a general attack against a civilian population, whether or not they are done in the course of an armed conflict, it is considered a war crime.

Torture is not from the XXI century; it has been a problem since the ancient civilizations: the Romans, Jews, Egyptians and many other cultures in history, included torture as part of their justice system. For them, this was considered necessary or good, depending of the situation. The Romans had crucifixion, the Jews had stoning and the Egyptians had desert sun death, as some of the most representative practice of their societies. Later on in history, that agony was very much employed in the middle age, especially at the time of the inquisition as punish for the unbelievers. It was at this time, when the most terrible pain mechanisms were invented. We can take as examples some methods as the death by hanging, one named The Head Crusher, who through bolts and bars, the victim’s head was compressed slowly, first breaking his teeth in the jaw, and then a slow death with agonizing pain. Also one called The Rack, when the executioner turns slowly a crank, which stretched the arms of the victim, so then; it dislocated his bones with a loud crack. These were some of the most terrifying torture methods of the middle Ages, which nowadays, would be severely punished by the United Nations.

As I said before, only came to set the global human rights declaration after the two wars, and thanks to all these horrors, we did wake up and react, to create a universal law, at least, to try to avoid another catastrophe of this. In wars, torture was practiced in the most particular ways, but also, more heinous than one might imagine. One of these was the "Medical Torture," which was practiced by the Nazis, either to know the level of pain that people could endure, to experience new treatments or drugs, or as ill treatment itself. From this, torture is considered today by the United Nations as one of the greatest violations of human rights, as it involves both physical and psychological damage, which should never be strictly applied under any circumstances. It is a general rule, applies to any situation, regardless

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